ITALIJA U STVARALAŠTVU TOMASA MANA: NOVELA „SMRT U VENECIJI“

Abstract

Whether it is travelers who visited Italy: Paolo Hofmann (The Will to Happiness), Tonio Kröger (Tonio Kröger), Gustav von Aschenbach (Death in Venice), Adrian Leverkühn (Doctor Faustus) or Italians in literary works: Girolamo Savonarola and Lorenzo de’ Medici (Florence), Ludovico Settembrini (The Magic Mountain), Mario and Cipolla (Mario and the Magician), of Thomas Mann’s oeuvre, the image of Italy and Italians is seen directly or indirectly in relation to Germany and the Germans. Behind the terms SOUTH and ITALY, a complex relationship is revealed that reflects Mann’s political and intimate understanding of these terms. Relying on the achievements of imagology, this paper asks, based on the novella Death in Venice, how the perception and presentation of oneself and the other support and maintain established images and notions of Italy and Italians as different, unconventional and exotic.